Giving Thanks

Tuesday was another productive day. I didn't close any trades but did very well on the demo, which is quite encouraging. The rest of the week I will be trading a little during the London session if at all, because even traders need to take time off. I am thankful for the opportunity to be a trader. I am thankful for all of the people I have met around the world who are willing to share their knowledge and experience with me. I am thankful for all of our military personnel serving their country. I am thankful for my family's health. I am thankful for a million other things that need not be mentioned here. Without a better way to stay it, THANKS!

Today's wrap-up

Today was relatively uneventful for live trades, with only one entry taken on the EURCHF. However, it was still a very productive day. As I've mentioned before I am currently demoing a new trading strategy and that went very well today. The results were definitely encouraging, but the best part was my ability to stay within the plan throughout the day. Looking to repeat that performance every day for the rest of the year, and then possibly taking it live depending on what the results and progress have been at that point.

Weekly wrap up

This week was a success. It wasn't a success because I made a huge amount of profit, which I didn't. This week was a success because I followed my trading plan and exercised patience every day. Not every trade was perfect, but progress was made. Also, I started to demo trade a new strategy picked up from Blue on his stream. Continuous improvement is the plan and this week fit into that plan.

Discipline

A guy that goes by the handle T4 on blue-point-trading's stream was sharing yesterday that discipline is one of the key ingredients in successful trading. He said that what people commonly refer to as emotional challenges with trading just come down to discipline, doing only what your plan allows and nothing more or less regardless of what you may be feeling at the time. This is probably not the trading revelation of a lifetime, but is still very interesting way to look at things. Am I disciplined as a trader? Admittedly, not as much as I should be. What is discipline as a trader? It probably comes in many forms and all situations but here are a few that seem important at this moment. Am I only taking trades that specifically conform to my daily trading plan? Is each trade exactly the size it should be according to my plan, neither smaller or larger? Have I been managing active trades exactly as I should be? Was my computer screen configured the way it ought to be for me to trade? Was I watching the market and ready to trade when I should be? Did I update my trading journal and review my performance at the end of the day/week/month? Did I get the amount of sleep that is necessary to be productive today? These, and many other, questions will help me identify if I've been disciplined today or not. Finally, if I haven't been disciplined today what am I going to do tomorrow to fix that? Again, no revelations here. If you follow Dr. Steenbarger, SMB Capital, the Mind of a Trader podcasts, or any other relevant and qualified trading resource you've probably heard all of these things a million times. A next step for me is to ask myself these questions every day and act upon the answers if they are anything other than a resounding and disciplined yes.

Learning to trade

Blue, from blue-point-trading, made a comment this morning when I was on his trading room at 3am. He said something to the effect that it was evident that I'm a serious trader because I'm up and at my desk every morning ready to go. I responded that what I lack in skill, at this point, I am trying to make for with determination. The concept of trading being a skill set that can be learned is interesting to me. As I was leaving my last appointment of the day I was trying to compare learning to trade to another job, and electrician came to mind. It seems to me that learning to trade is like learning to be an electrician. You can jump right it head first and risk certain (financial in the case of trading) death from the simplest mistake. Some might survive this trial by fire but there probably isn't much learning going on and they are setting themselves up for a devastating blow later on. The difference between learning to trade and learning to be an electrician is the opportunities for learning itself. Electricians, as with every other skilled trade, can go find a company or union to teach them the basics and what not to do, whereas a trader has to find all of this out on their own. There are some trading training programs but their cost or location are usually prohibitive. So we are left to our own devices to learn this business. That's what made Blue's comment so interesting to me. It reminded that while many people have blessed me by sharing of their hard-earned knowledge and experience it is up to me to put forth the effort necessary to grow as a trader. Determination might not be the sexiest way to approach a venture, but its what I have so it'll have to do.

Still in a range day

Today came and went more quickly than I would have liked. My non-trading activities dominated my time today, but with the market in a fairly tight range it was a perfect day to be distracted. I did not initiate any trades today, but closed out a EURCHF long and a GBPUSD long for profit. Until we break out of this 2-3 day range on the broader index (S&P 500) I'll be even more cautious about taking trades. The market needs to decided if we're going farther up or if its time for a real run down, and I don't want to be on the other side of a trade when that happens. I've started keeping a trading journal based on some ideas from SMB Capital and Dr. Steenbarger. The spreadsheet is still in its infancy, but you have to start somewhere.

Decent day

Monday was a pretty slow day for me with only 1-2 signals all day. The first was a USDJPY short, but it didn't feel right so I passed. The second came after 3pm and was an AUDUSD short. I took this trade and booked a modest 18 pips in about 10 minutes. The trade ended up going quite a bit farther, but I was keeping my stop tight once it went positive. Added to my EURCHF longs, but those should start paying off soon. Overall it was a decent day. I was patient and waited for the exact setup I was looking for, took the trade, and managed it effectively. As a trader that is all I can ask for. Now I'm just looking for the next bus.

Weekly wrap up

What a week. I ended up slightly negative on the P&L for the week but consider it an overall success. I've been listening to 'Mind of a Trader' podcasts downloaded for free from iTunes, keeping an actual trading journal, setting a clear goal for each day, and being patient enough to almost completely avoid the 10min charts all together. Not too bad. This is a business and I am structuring my business in a way that I feel will lead me to success. The EURCHF trades are still working, they're just few and far between due to the extremely low volatility in that pair recently. My focus on the longer time period charts has slowed down my trading significantly, and I'm ok with that. I remember Richard Regan of Pro Trading Course saying that if he doesn't take a single trade all day, he's done his job well that day. Part of the 'job' or 'business' of being a trader is to protect your capital. If I'm vigilant and don't take a trade then that day was a success. Mack, from Blue-Point-Trading's stream likes to say that "there's always another bus". Dr. Steenbarger continues to be a great resource with his blog and I intend on reading all of his books as soon as I can free up some time.

Patience

Today marks the second day in a row that no trades were taken. Now, yesterday was only a partial day since I took most of the day off to celebrate Veteran's Day. However, it is still important to note this lack of trading activity? Have the markets been stagnant? No, I've just been much more selective about my trading plan for the past 2 days. I've decided that my string of recent losses reflects an incomplete understanding of what I was specifically looking for so the best idea seemed to be to slow everything way down and focus on one specific trade setup on one time frame. With the help of Mack from the Bluepoint trading stream the one hour chart has become my new best friend and I'm only looking for reversal candles that are the color of the direction I would be trading (red for a topping or green for a bottoming reversal). There have been a couple opportunities for this, most notably in the euro and aud yesterday morning, but I wasn't completely comfortable with either setup so no trade was initiated. Hindsight being 20/20 the euro trade would have been stopped out and the aud trade would have gone to my take profit point for a successful trade. Not taking these trades was a success in and of itself because the ability to walk away from a potential trade had escaped me over the recent weeks which I believe has contributed significantly to my recent drawdown. What tomorrow holds I do not know but my goal will be the same as it has been over the past 2 days, to only take trades with this specific setup. Once this becomes a habit I plan to slowly introduce other trades or time frames, but to remain patient and only take whatever setups I am committed to for that day.

Happy Veterans Day!

Only watched the markets until 8:30am and then went about my annual veterans day celebration rounds.

Learning Curve

My learning curve is still much steeper than I had hoped at this point. Yesterday I took a total of 3 trades, none of which were exceptional. The first was a valid signal but I miscalculated the entry point a little low, which had I done it correctly would have kept me out of a losing trade. The second was an emotional trade based on the entry to the first and my expectation of a dollar rally, the candle was the wrong color for its position but I entered anyway for another loser. The final trade of the day was the right color in the right position but the entry signal didn't come until 2+ bars later and ended up going the wrong way for a final loser. I'm becoming more patient but there is a lot left to learn, and my eurchf trades are not making up for these other loses so I'm staring down the barrel of posting my first negative month. Meanwhile I'm waiting for the next bus.

Better

Today my trading showed some signs of life with 2 of 4 trades being good. Actually, one of the good trades was a loser. How could that be? I've been spending quite a bit of time this week listening to podcasts about trading psychology. They make it very clear that if you only define your success as the dollars made that day you are setting yourself up for a self-worth roller coaster. Initially counterintuitive, it actually makes sense. My focus all week has been on making one good trade. This doesn't mean the trade resulted in profit. Rather it means that I followed my trading plan to the letter and set myself up for financial reward. Beyond that there is nothing else we can do as traders. We can't control where the market goes once we've opened the trade. We can manage it to the best of our abilities but the end result is quite out of our control. The trade in question was a short usd/jpy which, if you watched the market today, would almost half to be a loser since it went up all day along with the broader market. The reason I consider it a good trade is that the 1 hour chart was showing the pair in a downtrend with price staying between the inner and outer bolinger bands (i use 2 with different settings) for a few hours. There was a reversal candle, which I should have taken, on the 10 minute and the pair consolidated for a little while. Then there was a bearish reversal candle at the 50ma on the 10 minute chart. This was a signal that he current longer (1 hour) term down trend should resume so I entered a short position. The price only went down a few pips from there and a while later I was stopped out for a loss. I'll take that loss because more often than not the current trend will continue in that situation and the exact same trade would result in profit. Follow the trading plan? Check. Good trade. Not a great trade because there was an opportunity to cut my losses once a certain price had been achieved and I didn't manage accordingly, but a good trade nonetheless.

Tomorrow's plan, one good trade.

Greed is (not always) good

Today was a reminder that greed can be bad. There's a saying on the street that 'Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered'. This rang true for me today. I was long the AUDUSD pair with decent size, for me anyway, going into the FOMC rate announcement. Shortly before the announcement there was a small pop that could have given me a nice 30 pip gain on the trade. Instead of taking this profit and going on with my day I decided to stay in and look for more profits after the announcement. My eyes grew wide as the whip saw action took the pair up to a point that would have netted me over 120 pips on the trade, so I tried to close out and lock in the profits. Unfortunately I didn't get my close order filled all the way back down to break even where I decided it would be best to keep it open. The pit stop at break even was just that, a pit stop. The pair proceeded directly down and hit my stop loss turning a potential 100 pip gain into a 60 pip loss. Lessons are becoming abundant this week, and the most recent ones are to take a gain when you can, and don't count on being able to close out a trade during heavy market action.
Results for Wednesday: 1 good entry long gbpusd at a short-term reversal candle with the 1 hour trend, bad short eurusd against the trend, ok long audusd mentioned above, bad short audusd right after green long wick reversal candle. 1 for 4.

Questions

Tuesday was not the day I was looking for. My mission, as mentioned that morning, was to make one good trade. Unfortunately I made 2 ok trades and 4 bad ones. Not quite the performance I was planning. Now the question is why. Am I overtrading? Entering too early or late? Am I misreading or misinterpreting the market and/or my signals? Am I not managing the trade effectively and giving up profits? These are the questions that I must consider going forward. One Good Trade.

Poor results yesterday

Yesterday, as I posted on Twitter, was not one of my best days. Post losses of more than 80 pips is not a great way to start the week. However, my issue is fairly common and was an issue last week as well. It seems that I enter the week with nothing buy how much money I need/want to make this week in mind and start off trying to get to that goal. This is an attitude that served me well in my previous career, but is not suited for trading. Dr. Steenbarger and the guys over at SMB Capital focus a lot of effort around the concept of "One Good Trade". Their point is that all you should focus on is making that one good trade, and not on the money you are trying to make, have just made, or even just lost. I've been thinking about this concept since roughly noon yesterday and it has become my mission for today. My goal today is to make one good trade.